Is this neglect ?

[Rainbowfish1]

I'm really worried about my niece , age. 4, and don't know if I'm overthinking.
My brother got her mum pregnant after a short relationship, they split shortly after niece was born, he pays maintenance regularly via the CMS but apart from that has little day to day involvement, ( yes I know, DB' s a dick). He's 45 and nieces mum is 25.

-My niece is meant to go to nursery 1-6, 2 afternoons a week during term time, ( nursery stretches funding so this includes holidays). My friend works there and says she's always absent , misses at least one session a fortnight, often more, ( obviously nursery can't enforce attendance as nursery is not legally compulsory). When she is in , session starts at 13:00, but frequently not dropped till 13.30/ 13.45 etc.

• When she's not at nursery, ( and she rarely is !) they go nowhere. Literally nowhere. Nursery is Tuesday and Friday, and between they don't go out at all. Absolutely lovely shared garden and play area in their block of flats but don't go there. They don't leave the house for days on end. Sister in law is addicted to gaming etc and basically happy to stay in.
• Sister-in-law doesn't brush her teeth as "niece doesn't like it ", what 4 year old likes having their teeth brushed...
• Niece is only dressed on nursery days, ( where she does seem to dress her appropriately), she stays in her PJs for days on end otherwise. Whenever I visit on a non nursery day , niece is in her pyjamas, even at 2/3pm. Sister-in-law says what's the point in dressing niece if they are not going out.
• Sister in law is very overweight, basically live off take aways each night, ( only healthy meal she gets is the dinner 2 x a week at nursery).
• The flat is filthy. Five cats in a two bed flat , stinks of cat urine whenever I go round, litter trays always overflowing. Extremely cluttered and no space for niece to play.
• Sister-in-law smokes weed daily, ( she says only when niece is in bed ), but the whole flat stinks of it.

I know the simple answer is to report to soical, but I'm worried they won't do anything and it will just end up withe and my parents being cut off
Does this cross the line to reportable neglect?

Report. I deal with safeguarding as part of my job and I’d report! You should have a local children’s service that has a contact number or online form. My concerns would be drug use mostly and potential neglect at home (hard to tell from a MN post but there are some red flags).

also to the people saying ‘why doesn’t OP have niece once a week’ - firstly it’s not that straight forward and secondly that isn’t going to counteract neglect and growing up in a home where there’s drug use. I’d also have concerns the mum may not enforce school either and the poor child will not develop as expected.

That poor girl

When you report, stick to the facts. Keep out the personal judgements as it just makes you look like you've got an axe to grind. Speak to safeguarding at the nursery. Might want to keep the info you got from the nursery to yourself as well. Bit of a breech there. Jobs get lost over stuff like that.

Your brother sounds like a reet perv getting a girl barely out of her teens pregnant.

You haven’t responded to any questions about whether you and your parents regularly take her out? Do you offer to have her for a weekend so that Mun gets a break? Have you offered to help do a clean up at her house? Can you have niece one day a fortnight and your parents do the same?

Whilst I do think this meets the threshold for neglect……. Mum also sounds depressed and overwhelmed. Who is helping her?

The Dad does sod all.

Mum is clearly neglecting her and struggling.

Grandparents and Aunt “visit” once per week between them and have offered to take 2 out of 5 cats. Haven't reported to Social Services.

Sounds like everyone all round is failing this child.

Please be the person to step up and offer support and help to the woman and your niece. Maybe for a month you and your parents could offer loads of help and support - have your niece for 24 hours every week (alternate between you and your parents), go round and help her do a deep clean on her flat. Ask if she’ll let you help her do a really easy and healthy meal plan for the week and take her to the supermarket for support. Signpost her to charities that could help eg Homestart and see if you she wants to refer herself for talking therapy. Do all of the above for a month to see if she is actually crying out for help, or whether she is intentionally neglecting. If she refuses help, the 100% report to social services and ask to speak to the safeguarding lead at her nursery.

Yes, that's neglect.

@Hollycoco yes, I agree, the mother’s attitude is important here. If she is genuinely finding parenting difficult and accepts the support and begins to make positive changes, that’s brilliant!

However, if she can’t make the changes, either because she doesn’t have capacity or she’s too defensive and can’t see the harm she’s causing, further intervention is needed.

Honest answer is that what you're describing would have been supported by children's services/health 20 years ago.

In today's world of stretched services, it won't be.

If I were you, I'd report to children's services. But they won't do anything. I'd tell the nursery you've reported to children's services and why, and ask if they've got any capacity within their team for supportive family work. The larger nurseries do.

I hate to say it, but if this lifestyle continues, your niece will unlikely have any involvement until her teeth fall out, she's massively overweight and her attendance at school is under 50%. Year 1 if she's lucky.

All the best.

Ah. You're the person! You know, the one who when there is a child neglect/abuse case on TV and people say how did everyone know and not do anything?
Op of course you need to do something. Poor child.

You are probably right.

The chances of him 'stepping up' are pretty low.

You'd think nursery would raise concerns. If that flat reeks of weed and cat piss they're definitely smelling it on that little girl. As for no days out I wouldn't judge her for that-my older sister slags me rotten cos I don't do as much as her in the holidays- she doesn't have to work like I do hence I don't do as much days out or camping like she does as I have work responsibility and paying for childcare to do so. Your brother is also disgraceful. He's preyed on a seemingly vulnerable young girl got her pregnant and fucked off leaving her to raise the poor child alone. Does she have any family support other than you and your parents visiting?

Yes you need to report.

Is she even going to get her to school when she starts. If you don’t report then school will certainly notice if/when she doesn’t attend.

It seems like rather than reporting her to social services, that you and your parents could instead step up and be a proper village to help raise the little girl? Support mum and get child out of the house and having enriching experiences. The love and care of her extended family will be much better than the involvement of some random social services person and the disruption and potential risk that she actually gets cut off from you. I would think about what result you want for the child (a better life presumably) and what would be the best strategy to achieve that.

Mum clearly needs support and child needs some enrichment and engagement - what steps could you take to achieve this before involving the government?

I’d see that as the least worrying thing…way more worrying that the house is filthy, she doesn’t leave the house for days and games all day (therefore ignores her kid day), the poor kid is getting zero stimulation. Smoking weed doesn’t make you a bad parent (although in this situation I can see a lot of this woman’s behaviour is probably as a result of smoking a lot of weed). Not everyone’s like this though. My dad was a heavy weed smoker when I was little, he was a great dad and way more playful & relaxed than he was without the weed!

Which poor sil is that? The one that sits on screens all day whilst neglecting her child? Or the one who smokes weed all the time whilst neglecting her child?

Report.
Safeguarding children is everyone’s responsibility. If there’s no problem, then nothing will be found, but if there’s ever any doubt, it’s better a person report it.

This is excellent advice. Calling SS on someone who clearly needs help is a pretty vile thing to do. Some people seem to naively think they’re helping and SS will offer support to the mum & child. They won’t. They don’t give a shit about the parent or supporting them, all they care about is the child and if they think taking them away is in their best interests (before seeing if the mum might be able to make some changes with support) then they’ll take them away. I never understand why people who are supposed to be trained ‘child specialists’ could possibly not understand how unbelievably traumatic it is for a young child to be taken away from their mother and sent to live with strangers. The scars can be lifelong. They need to be supporting single mothers not destroying families ffs

I would agree. I imagine they would speak to mum about weed and where and how much she smokes and possibly talk about home conditions but unless she lives in a very affluent kind of area I’d be surprised if children’s services do much more than that.

I would def see if you can support Mum and maybe get her permission to refer her in for some support, home start or another local charity or even your local family hub. Things that would get them out of the house and enjoying time together would make a difference, and maybe some talking therapy if she is interested. Mum is only young, is a single parent with child’s dad being far from helpful so I think helping her to help herself would be the best outcome long term

You haven’t responded to any questions about whether you and your parents regularly take her out? Do you offer to have her for a weekend so that Mun gets a break? Have you offered to help do a clean up at her house? Can you have niece one day a fortnight and your parents do the same?

You make it sound like it's OP's fault that the child is being neglected because she hasn't personally stepped up to "take in" a child that isn't even hers. Mum (and dad) sound like a lazy waste of space and no amount of well-meaning intervention from family members will be able to fix the fact that the child still has to spend 95% of her time at home.

Do you genuinely think that giving this mum a free day will result in her speed-cleaning her house, buying fresh groceries, batch cooking in advance and making sure everything is perfect for when her daughter returns? She will be glad the kid is gone and happily rot on the sofa smoking weed and watching True Crime videos for the entire night. Worse case scenario is that she learns she can offload her child onto the aunt or GPs to get some free time and will continue doing this as often as possible.

This is definitely a case for social services or even foster care. Family members trying to help is only enabling her to continue the same lifestyle or learning that she can offload the child onto relatives. Women like this will almost certainly end up meeting another man at some point and getting pregnant again. Are you ready to support all the half siblings as well?

This is definitely a matter to be referred to the local social services. This can be done anonymously and the more concerns they received for this poor child the better.
The cats would be a deal breaker for me, cannot tolerate being near them and the stink they create is abhorrent! The child is on a journey to respiratory problems with all the cat hair and dander so that would be a major concern if she were my niece.
Is there any stipulation in her rental agreement regarding animals in the property?
Have you considered taking the child out when you visit……to the playground, swimming pool, country park?

Why will "women like this" almost certainly meet another man and get pregnant again (which btw most women do if they break up with their kids dad)

I would 100% report as I agree it’s neglectful.
i also think sadly not going outside, not bothering to get the child dressed and sitting on a game all day is much more common than we realise.

The desperation to throw the blame off women amazes me.
It's not on OP to have her niece live with her ffs.
The father is clearly a waste of space. But the mothers behaviour is not on him

'clearly struggling' FFS. If this was a man there would be none of these responses at all.

I can't believe that in this day and age, that people think that this behaviour being reported to CS will lead to a child being removed from their family.

It won't. Families like this are everywhere sadly.

The biggest thing in this scenario is mum needs to want to change. Having aunt and nan step up to look after the child is likely to lead to mum becoming even less engaged.

There's a lot of entrenched behaviour here which aunt and nan are unlikely to have the expertise to support mum out of.

I’ve been on the receiving end of a malicious SS report and I know they are real and I would 100% report this.

Almost everything in this picture is going to significantly limit the life experience of the little girl.

Weed and filth are a no brainer. As is not brushing teeth. But I think never leaving the house, depriving the child starved of social contact and no understanding of the routines of normal life are just as bad. Its not fucking OK to spend your entire life inside gaming, smoking weed and never going outside. It’s appalling that anyone would think it’s acceptable for a child to think this is normal.

Yes the mother may be struggling but it needs dealing with and not normalising.

Really?? So you think this is a healthy and nurturing environment for this 4 year old to be living in? Absolutely not needs reporting